Once again, rain or no rain?But both teams were keen and risks had to be taken. At
6:00 a.m. Captains and Umpire received the go ahead and the dices had been
thrown.As usual our opponents were all here to admire our ever-improving
ground whereas some of our players were still questioning the sanity of
a game in dubious climatic conditions over the phone.By some unknown magic we started the game on time and
our skipper was asked to bat first by the confident Wombats Captain Courtney
“Chuck” Jones who assumed that the Kytes had not changed that much for
the last two years upon reading the players’ list which included the GOM.
The new names would not mean much if the Kytes had to recall an injured
Grandad to make numbers. The earlier the finish, the sweeter the beer!Our start seemed to vindicate his choice when Robb “Monogamist”
McKenna edged a swinging ball to his rival wicket-keeper Jarrad “Dino”
Shearer who dove for a splendid catch soon to be followed by Arbab “Kojak”
Mohammad, who had been sick all week, falling to a ball by new recruit
Gerard Brady that he never saw. At 16 for 2, things looked bleak indeed.
Skipper Ashley “Ashy” Harvey went to the fore with his reputation at stake
and joined Joel “Pants” who was still smarting from two successive ducks.
They successfully neutralized the opening bowlers and took the total to
95 after 17 overs, and we realized things were not going according tour
rivals’ plans any longer when Chuck began to shout on a regular basis from
the boundary. Pants fell to a good one from the other newcomer M. Ainslie
for a solid 26. Matthew “Spitometer” Sharpe came to the crease with the
firm intention to repeat on his last performance but was quickly sent back
being given lbw after he failed to connect sweeping at a straight ball
from J. Cole, battering everyone’s ears with new heights of indignant self-righteousness
on the way back to the Pavilion”.That is when Kunwar Mahender, an Indian lad unknown to
the Wombats came to the crease. For 8 balls he showed respect for the bowling
and asked for directions from his Captain. And then, bang! The Wombats
will have to find a new nickname for the batsman who hit them for 8 sixes
in the space of 21 balls. By the time Ashy left for 90 playing his first
false shot, the score was already beyond our opponents at 182 in 28 overs.
Subhoda “Subo” Gunawardene, another fiery character in a loud Kytes band,
joined the fun and the South Asian pair piled misery with a 65-run partnership
in 6 overs. Nick “Porno” Shannon, who had been screaming his glee all day
long, then came in to rub in salt and sand with lusty hits and running
as if his life depended on it.Total: 293/7 and the GOM had not left the scoring chair.
Only G. Brady and M. Ainslie got some respect. The left were wondering
what had hit them.

But the battle still had to be won, the Wombats having
the same vaunted batsmen who took them to the D-1 Final last year.Well, in spite of two missing starting bowlers who had
not played in the KCL last year, another unknown with the name of Benjamin
“Topper” Tomlinson quickly had his compatriots in the enemy camp revise
some of their ideas with sheer pace and aggression. Chuck saw in horror
the first ball he had finally middled with the bat go straight to Tomo
who pulled out the catch of the day. It was soon payback time for Monogamist
when he smartly caught Dino’s inside edge off the same bowler. The game
would have been all over almost at once if Spitometer had not put down
a difficult catch off an edge by last year year’s best D-1 batsman, Steve
Burke. He and Kiwi Tim Whisker put 62 runs on the board before the latter
fell to a good one from Kojak who had been revived to block the progress
once and for all. From 70/3, the Wombats simply collapsed with 3 suicidal
run outs and unconfident batting. Spitometer redeemed himself by catching
Steve Burke who spooned Porno’s (Shit Takes Wickets) full toss in the deep
and the Kytes were soon celebrating.The Division 1 promises to be a hard fought affair upon
learning the victories of Wyverns and Giants against Millennium and YCAC.
With Friends and Indian Engineers to complete the show, each encounter
should provide plenty of drama!After the game, the Wombats had the grace to offer their
sponsors’s wine to Ashy for Man Of The Match, to Tomo for The Play Of The
Day and to Gerard Brady for The Best Wombat Of The Day.And then both teams (minus Kojak who was hurrying back
to bed) repaired to Yoshida Soba to reminisce on their exploits of the
day. But for once the Kytes did not have to listen to that ridiculous song!

On 23rd April at Fuji , records
were made in plenty. The highest individual score in KCL as well as the
highest partnership for any wicket in KCL. The match was between Tokyo
Bay and Serendib. The weather was very much cloudy with occasional showers
falling in between. The year 2005 has shown that Tokyo Bay has come along
very well as a team under the captainship of Sachin Chowdhery, who took
over from Ken Wadano. But the year 2006 and the KCL new season has started
to show that Tokyo Bay is going to turn out as one of the most enterprising
teams. There are players now in Tokyo Bay who can go out and do the batting
at any slot and there are so many options in bowling that even the strike
bowlers can be rested during the matches. This is going like the rotation
policy of Greg Chappell with the present India Team.

As on the morning of 23rd April,
nobody ever imagined that the records would be re-written. Tokyo Bay reached
the ground at 09:00 am, but Serendib in spite of staying overnight at Fuji
, reached the ground late at 11:00 am and play started at 11:15 am. Serendib
lost 3 overs as result in their innings. Tokyo Bay again won the Toss and
elected to Bat as the conditions were favouring the fast bowlers of Serendib
and there were many chances of rains as was predicted by the weather forecast.
Tokyo Bay opened the innings with M.Karthik and Saad Qureishi. Both played
very well with the new ball attack and saw the new ball thru the early
overs. When it looked like Karthik was looking set for a long innings,
he got out LBW. This happened in the 8th over of the innings. Here walked
the captain in to join Saad. Nobody ever thought that from now on the record
partnership will come into being. Sachin played the best innings till date
for Tokyo Bay and Saad also played the best innings of his for the team.
Both took their time to adjust to the wicket and reached 117 for 1 till
the half time. But the things started to fold for Serendib from here onwards
as Saad and Sachin started to take over the attack to the Serendib bowlers.
Next 20 overs got 192 runs for Tokyo Bay. The last 10 overs got 119 runs
for Tokyo Bay. The final score made was 309 for 1. The highest score made
by Tokyo Bay. Saad made 174 not out of 122 balls, while Sachin made 101
not out of 91 balls. Saad’s innings was studded with 10 sixes and 16 fours,
while Sachin’s innings was studded with 4 sixes and 9 fours. Their partnership
was for 287 runs and unbroken till the end.

It was a tall task for Serendib
to chase 309. But their batsmen Asanka and Shiron batted very well and
made individual 50’s. But they could only muster 238 for 6 in their allotted
overs. Here also bowling honours from Tokyo Bay goes to Mayank Dabral,
Dinesh Shandilya and Amandeep Singh. They all bowled very well and accurately
to the batsmen. Mayank finished with 8 – 0 – 27 – 0, Dinesh had the figures
of 8 – 1 – 28 – 1, while Amandeep had figures of 8 – 0 – 39 – 1. Well,
Tokyo Bay could have won the match with a large margin if it would not
have been the case of giving away too many extras in the form of wides.
In all Tokyo Bay gave away 43 wides.

It seems now that Tokyo Bay is going
to take each match very seriously and each match needs to be won. In a
way it was an all round effort by Tokyo Bay to clinch this match.

Dragons CC get 4 more points without
breaking a sweat and Sernedib CC start their campaign on a positive note:D-2:Serendib CC: 179 (Ganga 39)Adore CC: 112Serendib CC won by 67 runs